 So, Senate government operations Friday, February 19th, and we are going to go through the elections bill right now, and so it is posted on our committee website. It's draft 1.2 as probably this very moment. There is also an earlier one that was posted or sent to us. It was at 12.18 PM, and that should be pretty identical except for maybe some editing changes because what was posted for us there at 12.18 was the considered the final draft but had not yet been through editing, if that makes sense to everybody. So, I think what we'll do is, we'll start going through this, and as we have in the past in this committee, is look at the sections, section by section, and decide on those sections, and then have everybody weigh in on those sections. If there are any controversies about them or and then we'll just cross them off. Yes, we all agree or no, we don't want that in there. Okay. All right. So, let's start and Amron, do you want to walk us through this? How do you and Will want to do this? I think that you might want to walk us through it. I think it might make sense for me to do the initial walk-through and I'll pause after each section for the Secretary of State's office to chime in on any details. As we go through each section, we're going to deal with them right then. We're not going to do two walk-throughs. Can I just, for clarification? Right. I think the newer one has highlighting at the breaks, or does the new one not have highlighting because they both say that have the same timestamp. Oh, do they both say 12.18? Yes. Oh, I thought one was 1.2. Isn't it stress 1.2? I know I clicked the newer one that just got posted which has a highlight on each of the sections. I just want to make sure we're all looking at the same. I don't see any highlights on this one. I don't have any highlights on mine. Me neither. But it's five of 33 pages. I mean, it's 13 pages. It says 12.18, draft 1.2. Both of them say that. The newest one does have highlighting. Okay. But the highlights are not substantive changes is my understanding. They're drafting highlights. I mean, they're editing highlights. The yellow highlights you see are only for reader headers to help the committee differentiate when we're moving into a new subject area within the bill. Okay. So you can just discard the newer one open. So I'll just stick with that. Would you like me to remove the old one? It doesn't make any difference. It's the same. Okay. So the way we're going to do this is, and Amron, you haven't done this with us as a committee before, but the way we tend to do them is, so you will go through section one is the consent of the candidate and walk us through what that says. Then we will find, take testimony on it from anybody that is here that wants to comment on it and then decide whether it's we accept that, need to make a change or don't accept it. Then we're done with that section unless we need to make a change. So that it just saves us from having a walk-through and then start then going back and testifying on sections. Okay. Yes. All right. Great. Thanks. All right. Excuse me. For the record, Amron Averigely, Legislative Counsel. I am looking at draft 1.2 of the bill 21-0081. This is an act relating to state election procedures. I'm beginning with section one on page one with the highlight candidate nicknames, and this section would change title 17, section 2361. If you scroll down onto page two, you'll see there is an addition of subdivisions A and B. This will restrict the manner in which a candidate may place a nickname onto the ballot, and this would require that the nickname be of one or two words by which the candidate has been commonly known for at least three years preceding the election and may be used in combination with a candidate's name. A nickname that constitutes a slogan or otherwise indicates a political, economic, social or religious view or affiliation may not be used. In addition to that, a nickname may not be used unless the candidate executes and files with the application for a place on the ballot and affidavit indicating the nickname complies with this subsection. Okay. Great. Any comments or questions on that? I don't see any. Are we okay with that? Just to clarify, we don't require that they put it in quotes. Like Joseph quotes Joe Biden. Just they can go by Joe Biden if they prefer without quotes. I'm going to defer to the Secretary of State's office on other requirements. Sorry, am I on mute or no? Senator Rahm, if you look directly above the new language, it is required to be in quotations. Okay. Thank you. Just while I have the mic, I wanted to just quickly state that for the second part of the new language, we'll probably just include a little place on the consent form itself. It won't be a separate affidavit where it says, if using a nickname, please sign here that you swear to the requirements of that section. Thank you. Senator Polina, did you have a question? Well, just a comment really or a thought. I presume that it might be times when you at the Secretary of State's office have to decide whether a nickname has economic, social, religious, few points. I'd be up to you to make that decision. Yeah, I suppose so. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I just want to be clear if somebody asks who's in charge. Yeah. Just as DMV decides what you can put on your license plate. True. Okay. So are we all okay with that? I'm checking it off. Done. Good. Okay. Moving on, Namron. Moving on to page three. This section has edits around the use of outdoor polling places and drive up or drive through voting. This would amend section two would amend 17 VSA 2502 to add outdoor polling places to the title of the section and place some restrictions and parameters around how outdoor polling places should be conducted. It has to be conducted in a manner that is consistent with the provisions of this chapter. The boards of civil authority must designate an outdoor area that comprises the polling places for purposes of the restrictions and requirements for polling places. Oh, I see what you mean. There are some leftover highlights in here. Those are just from the editing because we got it so late. So you can ignore the blue highlights. An indoor polling place alternative must be available at or near the same physical location as the outdoor polling place in case of inclement weather. If an indoor alternative needs to be used, the Secretary of State's office must be notified immediately. Moving down to the bottom of page four. Candidates and members of the public who would otherwise be allowed to campaign outside an indoor polling place must be kept a reasonable distance from the outdoor polling place such that any campaigning does not disrupt or interfere with the voting process. Moving down to page four. This is a subsection on drive-up voting to allow that voting may be conducted by a drive-through. Let's look at the indoor since this is a slightly new topic. It's a segue. Any questions or concerns or anything comments about the outdoor polling provision? Well, I'm just going to read it quickly and make sure that they could make that call within 30 days of an election. Maybe they could say, like, I think that happened with town meeting day that all of a sudden the pandemic was just, you know, sort of heightening, escalating. And people said, what if we had an outdoor polling place? They can still do that. They just need to give the Secretary of State 24 hours notice that they will be doing outdoor polling or they don't need to notify anybody. They can just be in front of the polling place. You are saying if it was designated as indoors, then they need to suddenly move outdoors. Will, it doesn't say how much, it just says it shall be notified immediately. If you change from outdoor to indoor. Right, that's if you're using the alternate indoor place when you had previously fully 30 day notice warned an outdoor polling place. To Senator Rahm's question, there's already a provision. I think it's below in this same section. I think you were mentioning it that allows you to change a polling place within the 30 days before an election in cases of emergency. And in that case, you have to tell us within 24 hours. And so if you're, you're envisioning an emergency that required you to move outside, I would have that notice be operating under that emergency 24 hour notice provision of a change of polling place from what was warned. Okay. Gwen, you're muted. Point of clarification. What does this apply to under Title 17? Is it all elections that local end states? Is there differentiation? All. Okay. And so the process that's outlined in here is this similar to identical to different to what we have done, what was done last year and even perhaps town meeting prepped for this upcoming March or beyond. I'm just trying to get a gauge of what might be flagged here that's different. Like having a polling place right next to a outdoor place, whether that's been, that's what you've been telling towns to do already. Sure. Yeah. And thanks, Gwen, for the most part in this, the language about outdoor polling places and the language you'll see next about drive-up polling places was primarily borrowed straight from the directives that we issued last year and this year with a little more detail probably and a little more thought. For instance, what you asked about in the directives that did require an alternate indoor location. I believe in the directives we said at, I thought the language in here at or near provided a little more needed flexibility. The, this gives me a chance to point out, I put in the provision that says that the BCA has to really particularly designate the area outside that comprises the polling place. And that's in an effort to be able to define where the campaigning stops, the same way that when you get into the building under normal circumstances, the rules that apply in the building are gonna be meant to apply to that specific area that's been defined as the outdoor polling place. Other than that, it's pretty similar to what we allowed and required last year. Senator Calabar. Thank you Madam Chair. Am I assuming, maybe I'm missing the whole point of this, that given the weather in March, there's little likelihood that there'd be too many outdoor polling places for town meeting. That's right. Okay. I guess I was on it. But they couldn't do it. Yeah, and what has happened this year is a lot of them have postponed until April or May and then are planning to do it outside them. Yeah. Thank you Madam Chair for the record, Pat McDonald, President of Campaign for Vermont Board of Directors. I'm just wondering where it says candidates stay a reasonable distance. That will allow towns to set what a reasonable distance is because most towns do, I don't know, whatever feet to stay away depending on how the geography works at their polling places, right? So they can set what that means because I've been in situations where that's a big discussion about what reasonable means. So have I. Yeah, exactly. Yes. Right now, that's generally up to the towns to where the campaigning happens outside. Like you mentioned, there's no set feet away from the building that it can occur. Right, I'm sorry, the towns can do that still. Yes. Okay, thank you. Senator Clarkson. But they can't deny us the ability to stand somewhere, correct? Correct. Yeah, there are a couple towns who might like to be reminded of that. Well then, okay. Paul, I have the microphone. Is it possible for us to rename this whole section Carol's section? So like the outdoor, I'd love to have a subtitle of it somewhere that might be in session law. No, I don't think so. Carol's conditions. Okay, thank you. Any other concerns about our clarifications about outdoor polling places? Good. Okay, then, Amra, and then let's move on to drive-up. All right, beginning at the top of page four in subsection C, drive-up voting. Voting may be conducted by a drive-through or a drive-up voting method at a polling place if the voting process can be operated in a manner consistent with the provisions of this chapter. The voting, the drive-up voting procedures must enable voters to complete the voting process without leaving their cars. Allow voters to deposit their ballot directly into a tabulator or secure ballot box that may be brought to the window of the vehicle or located in such a manner that it can be accessed from the vehicle or providing voters an envelope or folder in which to place their voted ballot before handing it to an election official for processing. It's important to note polling places conducting drive-up voting shall also accommodate walk-in voters and those using other forms of transport. Any questions on that on the drive-up? It doesn't say you can drive-up on your horse, but I assume that they would let you drive-up on your horse. It does say vehicle. It doesn't say. No, it says other forms of transport. Well, before it says vehicle, drive-up, you have to come up in a vehicle, leaving their vehicle without leaving their vehicle on line five. Yes, if they drive-up in their vehicle, they have to be able to vote without having to leave it. If they drive-up on their horse, they're already outside. So maybe they, I don't think we need to address, I meant that as a joke, not- I know. I don't think we should address horses or tractors. Well, this says vehicle, so it assumes it's something that's vehicular. Right. Well, I also, I just wonder if while we're looking at it, it makes sense to take out language that says they have to be an elder or someone with a disability. I mean, they could have their kids in the car and not wanna leave their kids in the car and go vote. Like there's a lot of reasons besides having to prove that they're, it's not in the current language. I'm looking at, what am I looking at? Page five, line five. We're not at five. We have not gotten there yet. Oh, I'm sorry. We're on page four, lines one through nine. Okay, I'll wait till page five. We're just talking about drive-up voting on page four. That kind of spirit of drive-up voting is continued on page five, so I'll wait. Okay, so any questions about that? All right, then let's move on. Ballot transfer. If a polling place is outside or a voting is conducted by a drive-up method, ballots may be periodically transferred from a secure outdoor or drive-up ballot box to another secure container for counting after the close of polls or to election officials who are processing ballots through the tabulator. Any such transfer shall be done in the presence of two election officials, if possible, officials of different parties. Any, are we okay with that? Okay. Subsection E, access. The accessible voting system must be available for those who request it. This is already a requirement, but we have reiterated it in here for those outdoor and drive-up polling places. Moving down onto page five, and I believe the remainder of the changes here are just to, yes, I'll just- Everything after the statement about the accessible voting system is current law. It is, I only added a section down here to add polling place designation, but that is not a substantive change. So that concludes the end of the outdoor end drive-up polling. So, Senator Rom, what was your- So on page five, line five, it's kind of related to drive-up voting and access and indicates that it permits election officials to carry a ballot to an elder person or person with a disability in order to permit that person to vote from a motor vehicle. I just wonder if while we're looking at the section, we could take out the idea that somehow someone has to be an elder or a person with a disability to get that service. I'll let Will address that, but on line 18 on page four, it says it must be available to anyone who requests it. So this might be contradictory then. Will? So that's existing language. And I think it's important to keep in there, Senator Rom, because what that will allow for is when you're not doing drive-up voting and you're having a standard indoor polling place that you still can bring a ballot out to the car of someone who requests it. That's our current language that allows for what they call curbside voting. And it's an important allowance and people do use it. I don't know if John or Carol wanted to speak to that. Carol, I can't remember if there's a more specific broader reference to curbside voting anywhere else in the statute. I think that might be it, but I would encourage you other than changing that language if you don't like that language, but to leave the opportunity for generally for curbside voting. I'm not saying to take out curbside voting. I'm saying to not have to be a specific kind of person to merit curbside voting. That's a substantive discussion because then you're talking about that if the clerk and all the election workers are operating an indoor polling place that a very large number of voters could then be asking them all to come out to the car. Hi, John. Yeah, just for clarification, under current law or the, are we able to, for example, if someone comes into an indoor polling place and refuses to put on a mask, I've instructed folks to essentially do curbside. Am I following the law by doing that? Well, it sort of came up. You're following the directives, at least, that currently allow for that to happen. And I wouldn't suggest writing provisions in that have to do with mask wearing into the statute. No, just something more broadly, but. You're good though. So I don't know, committee, if we want to go. There it does seem to me that if we allowed anybody during a non-drive-up election to just say, I mean, it does say that they have to be accessible to those who requested, but I think this is a broader conversation. Do we want to go there or just leave it the way it is? Leave it. I would leave it the way it is. I understand Tisha's concern, but I also understand that just because you have a fussy child, I don't think it means, I mean, that does open the floodgates for all sorts of people who might like to have them come down to their car. And it's not always that easy. There aren't always lots of extra people at the polling places. Right. Senator Polina. I'm okay with leaving it for now. Okay. All right. Okay. So I don't see any more changes until page seven. Is that right? I mean, you added a polling place designation there, but there's no new language. Correct. I'm sorry. I was on mute. Yes, that is correct. The next new section begins on page seven. Okay. All right. So the next series of sections are about ballot mailing for local elections. So beginning at the bottom of page six and going into page seven is section three, which amends 17 VSA 2680 regarding Australian ballot system. And you will see there is a new subsection G, early and absentee voting. At the time the Australian ballots are available, which shall be not less than 20 days before the election, early and absentee voting shall be permitted in accordance with chapter 51 sub chapter six of this title. The legislative body of a town, city or village may vote to mail a ballot to all active registered voters. A school board may, after receiving the approval of the legislative body of each member town in the district, vote to mail its annual meeting ballot to all active registered voters in the district. In this case, the town clerk and election officials in the member town shall be responsible for the mailing of the ballots, but all costs associated with the mailing of ballots shall be borne by the school district. And ballots shall not be mailed, excuse me, shall be mailed not less than 20 days before the election or as soon as they are available. The mailing of ballots shall be conducted to the extent practicable in accordance with chapter 51 sub chapter six of this title. And that is the only change regarding local elections. Any comments, concerns, Gwen? More of a question. And it's not really a my question, a VLCT question, but it just has me wondering because it's limited to town cities and villages and school boards, are there any other municipalities like fire districts, water districts, utility districts, solid waste districts, those sort of things that might want to avail themselves of these provisions as well. I'm just flagging it. I don't know the answer to the question. I just, it just got me thinking. Can I speak to that Senator White? Yeah. Quickly. Thanks Gwen again. There certainly might be other municipalities that would like to, this gives me a chance to explain the school board section there a little bit. We, the committee had agreed to limit the option to decide to mail ballots to all voters for local elections to a town city or village. The reason that we discussed that and had settled on that is that those municipalities have the infrastructure to do so, essentially a board of civil authority, right? And a clerk who knows about early voting. The school boards don't and even further down the line are your water districts and fire districts that is somebody operating out of their living room generally. At the request of John Odom and others to express the same kind of interest in letting school ballots also be mailed out for annual meeting where it's easy. I've included that language about school boards. I think the committee should look at it and consider it and think whether it makes sense. What it says is that a school board of a union school district, it doesn't specify that because the school board of a single town district, there are a few of those left would under that provision just have to agree with the select board to do so, which I think makes sense. But of a union school district, you would have to be getting the individual member select boards in each of those towns to take a vote to agree to mail out the school ballots for annual meeting. I did limit it to the annual meeting of the school districts. I think that's when they all want to be able to do it for the budget votes that they then could do so. And then it further goes on to make clear because the next question that everybody always asks is who's responsible for it? That the town clerk and election officials in the towns are gonna be responsible for that early voting. I think that it's worth giving a shot and seeing how it works. Any questions on that? And I will say in terms of other municipalities, the only other municipality that I believe we heard from when we were dealing with the ability for annual meetings in January was the Northeast Kingdom Solid Waste District. And hopefully they have changed their charter by this time or will. So they don't have to keep doing that. So is everybody okay with this for local elections? Yes. Oh, Carol. Just for clarification, Berry City and Montpelier belong to the Central Vermont Public Safety Authority and their annual meeting questions are included on our ballots. And so what we currently do is because they are run out of somebody's living room, we currently just place their questions on our ballots. And that's an informal way of doing it. There's nothing in statute that would either mandate that we do it or mandate that they act according to our city councils. In our situation, I don't see that being any impediment but I can see where that might be a problem for other communities. Somebody else can weigh in on this if they want. I think that there is no way we will ever, because we have 250 towns and probably a thousand different districts that overlap with other towns will be able to address every one in here. And I suggest that just not prohibiting and not mandating leaves the flexibility for you to continue to do that and for others to do that if they want to but not telling them they have to or they can't. Well, one would hope that organizations and municipalities would work together to the mutual benefit. One would hope. Carol, real quickly, my guidance there, Carol, too, would be that if by tradition, you've put those things on your town ballot and then your town legislative body decides to mail the ballot out to all voters, that we wouldn't say you can't put that on there as you've done traditionally because of this. Thank you. Okay. Was that a thumbs up, John, or wanting to say something? Okay, two thumbs up. Okay, Roger Ebert would love you. You can call that school board provision, the John Odom provision if you want to say other Clarkson. Okay. Senator Clarkson likes to name things. I like names, but you know, I'm a real wasp. So, you know, we like to have everything, cars have names, everything has a name. All these sections in statute. All right, let's move to page eight. I believe that's where the next comes in and this is ballot mailing for statewide elections. Yes. Beginning with section four, this amends 17 BSA section 2532. There is some language in subsection E here that is I would say some clarification language and updating language to specify that a town clerk can issue a duplicate early absentee ballot if the original ballot is lost or not received to make that clear. And rather than saying after mailing specifying that after it is mailed to the voter by the town clerk or the secretary of state's office. Moving into page nine, subdivision two. If a duplicate early voter absentee ballot is issued and both the duplicate and original early voter absentee ballot are received before the close of the polls, the ballot that is received first by the town clerk shall be counted and the elections division of the secretary of state's office shall be notified. This is varying from the previous language that it was the vote with the earlier postmark that would be counted. Any questions, comments, concerns? Okay, done. All right, I have my red pen here and I'm marking done by things. So when we're done, we're done. Okay, section five. Section five amends 17 VSA section 2536. Upon request for any statewide primary, presidential primary or general election, the secretary of state shall furnish the envelopes prescribed in sections 2535 and 2542. And the cost of absentee ballot envelopes for local elections shall be borne by the municipality. This is to make clear which envelopes are being provided by the secretary of state's office and for local elections, the cost of those ballots will be borne, excuse me, about envelopes will be borne by the municipality. So I do have a question about that. It says upon request for any statewide primary, oh, primary, got it, forget it. I wasn't paying close attention. I got it. Any comments, questions, concerns? Carol? I do wanna note that this is obviously a change, a shift in expenses from the state to the municipality and certainly something that we wanna make sure we're looking at, but as part of the whole statewide mailing of ballots, we're already seeing a shift of costs associated with postage from the local level to the state level. So there are offsets, but it is something that is likely to bring up some conversation. I guess I didn't see that. Right now, the municipalities don't pay for the envelopes. They're supplied- Even for their own local elections? Correct. For the absentee ballot envelopes, they're supplied by secretary of state's office. I see, I see, but in this case, they would pay for the local ones and the secretary of state's office would pay for the others. Correct. Okay. But can I ask, are they, they're paying for them but they're paying the secretary of state's office to get the same standard envelope. It's not like they will have to go out and make a new envelope. I'm assuming that's true. We use standard envelopes, so I wouldn't think there would be a different envelope for local elections. Senator Clarkson? But Carol, the local ones are returned to the local, to the municipality. So it makes some sense that they're printing them to return to their own town hall or wherever they're coming, right? Actually, they're all being returned to the town clerks. Even the ones that are mailed by the states are being returned to the town clerks. But if I were to pay for envelopes versus postage, I'd take envelopes any day. I agree. Yeah. So there may be some discussion, but I think that's, that's, whoa. I just wanted to point out that while it does look like a shift to local expenses, that there are offsets. Yes, that's a big offset. Okay. All right, are we okay with that, everybody? Committee? Okay. Done, done. Okay, Amarons. Okay. Moving on to section six at the bottom of page nine. This would amend 17 VSA section 2537, earlier absentee voting in the town clerk's office. This amends a subsection of A1, a voter may, if he or she chooses, if he or she chooses apply in person to the town clerk for the early voter absentee ballot and envelopes. And in subdivision three, it says the voter may mark his or her ballots and place them in the envelopes and sign the certificate and return the ballots to the town clerk or an assistant town clerk without leaving the office of the town clerk may take the ballots and return them to the town clerk in the same manner as if the ballots had been received by mail or, and this last part is new, mark the ballots and deposit them directly into the vote tabulator or ballot box in accordance with section 2546B of this sub-chapter. MIDI? Senator Collamore. Thank you, Madam Chair. How does this differ from what happens now? Is the tabulator not, in other words, if I came in to my town clerk's office 19 days before the election and filled out my ballot, I would normally just put it back in the envelope and give it to the clerk, correct? Now I'm giving the added option of actually feeding it into a tabulator. Would the tabulator not, I guess I'm trying to figure out what the added work is for the town clerk to make sure that they hold the tabulator out and it's ready for ballots to come on through it. Good question. Thank you, Senator Collamore. And that's right. You see the current, you described it exactly. The current two options are those first two sections. You can either vote in the office there, but right now what happens is they put it in the certificate envelope, sign it, and it gets put in the bin with all the other early absentee ballots, right? For whenever those are processed. What this allows is just what you described for it to go directly into the tabulator or in a hand count town, directly into a locked ballot box, right? So instead of requiring that extra step of putting it in the envelope, signing it, and then at some point down the line to election officials taking it out, you're going directly in. We had allowed for this two years ago. It's been going on in Brattleboro for a number of years now, all the way back to the previous clerk, where they pull the tabulator out 30 days before the election, every time they go into work in the morning, there's a set of procedures around it, how that's done. And then, yeah, it's available. It's visible to the clerk at all times, you know, behind the counter. If somebody comes in and wants to vote, they vote and they slide it right in there. You will see what we do later on in the chapter is we specify that that can happen. So this is really clean up in this section about voting in the office to make sure that we acknowledge that we've allowed that process of voting with the tabulator for 30 days. And you'll see when we get to it that I believe the way it's constructed right now, no, that's for the other section. We'll get to it when we get to it. You'll see the rules around that process. And Senator White, that gives me a chance just really quickly to say that from here down, right where we've started with this section, we did some of the pieces not directly related to the ballot mailing already. And that was good to have gone through those individually like that. Essentially from this point on, I took the absentee ballot sub-chapter title 17, it's sub-chapter six, I think of chapter 51, conduct of elections, pasted the whole thing into a Word document and went through each section because it was important to make sure that we were touching each section and thinking about the ballot mailing in November and making sure that all the language in this chapter accounted for that significant change. So you'll see a number of places like here where it's minor cleanup to language of existing sections to just acknowledge the ballot mailing. And then you'll also see as we go along the new language that really establishes those processes. So there'll be a little bit of both of that as we continue going. If that makes sense to anybody. Yep. Thank you, John. I'm wondering if the language, the word may would require us or have the effect of requiring town clerks to make a publicly available tabulator, you know, concurrent with when the absentee ballots are available. I mean, would that essentially mandate it so they may have that option? Great catch, John. And I think we should put a clause at the beginning of that C letter C that says if the legislative body of a town has voted to make the tabulator available during early voting or something to that effect has made that process available so that the voters can't demand that you do that just like you just pointed out. Good. All right. Amarin, can you help me remember those kinds of things? Yes, I am writing them directly into the draft. Sorry. I don't, John, can you just show me where that may might would go? I'm lost. If you look at line 11, Right. Look at line 11. Will is suggesting putting a clause in there that says that if the legislative body of the town has authorized it, then the voter may mark the ballot and put it directly in. Okay. All right, so moving on section seven. Section seven begins at the bottom of page 10, this section, excuse me, this section adds 17 VSA section 2537A. And this is the section that requires the mailing of general election ballots. Subsection A, for every general election, the secretary of state's office shall mail a general election ballot to all active voters on the statewide voter checklist. Moving on to page 11, the mailing of the ballot shall commence no later than 43 days before the election and shall be completed not later than October 1st. A postage paid return envelope pre-addressed to the town or city clerk of the town or city where the voter is registered shall be included with the ballot sent to every voter in which the ballot may be mailed back to the clerk. All postage costs shall be borne by the secretary of state's office. The address filed to be used for the mailing shall be generated from the statewide voter checklist as close as practical to the date of mailing, but in no case late earlier than September 1st. The secretary of state's office shall include in the mailing to each voter instructions for the return of the voted ballot. General election ballots mailed by the secretary of state's office under this section shall be returned by the voter to the town or city clerk in the town or city where that voter is registered in accordance with the procedures for return of ballots described in this sub-chapter. Questions, comments, concerns, okay. Done? Okay, all right, done. That's big, that's big. I just want to acknowledge that section. We may not have to have a name for it, but that's big. Well, maybe we could put it in capital letters or something or yeah. Okay, section eight. Section eight amends 17 VSA, section 2539 delivery of early voter absentee ballots. The substantive change is on page 12. Subsection or subdivision two, except as provided for in subdivision three. The early voter absentee ballots shall be mailed forthwith upon the filing of a ballot application or upon the town clerk's recede of necessary ballots, whichever is later. Subdivision three A, which is new for any general election if a voter transfers his or her registration from another town or city in the state following the mailing of ballots to all active voters by the secretary of state's office before issuing an absentee ballot, the clerk shall confirm the status of the ballot that was previously mailed to that voter by the secretary of state and proceed as follows. If the voter has voted and returned the ballot issued to the voter by the secretary of state, to the town in which they were previously registered, the voter shall not be issued a ballot nor be allowed to cast another ballot in the same general election and shall be registered for the following election. If the voter did not receive or did not return the ballot that was previously sent by the secretary of state, the voter may be issued another ballot for the general election. So long as, and now I'm on the top of page 13, the voter returned the unvoted ballot that was previously issued or the voter signs an affidavit stating that the voter has not previously cast a ballot in that general election. And lastly, if a voter registers to vote for the first time in Vermont, following the mailing of ballots to all active voters by the secretary of state's office and requests a ballot for the general election, the ballot shall not be issued to that voter pursuant to subdivision A, shall be issued, excuse me, the ballot shall be an important clarification there. The ballot shall be issued to that voter pursuant to subdivision A1 of this section. I thought, oh my goodness, are we going backwards here? Okay, any questions, comments, concerns on that? I like the language here around if you move from town to town. So assuring that people won't be voting in two different towns. Any questions, concerns, Carol? Not so much questions, but my assumption is that the clerks will work with the secretary of state's office on what that checking looks like where we would have to confirm whether a voter has processed a ballot yet or not. Perhaps there will be something in the election management system that allows us to check it electronically or maybe it will require us to contact a clerk, but we'll obviously need to put processes in place for that. Mila? Oh, thanks. Lila Richardson with the League of Women Voters. I just wanted to check on subsection B, which is the one involving the new registrants. It seems as though there may be a time period that's not accounted for if the secretary of state's mailing is, say, October 1st, but the cutoff for the use of the checklist is September 1st. Maybe I'm misreading this, but we would want to make sure that somebody who registered on September 2nd would have the same protections as somebody who registered after the ballots were mailed. I think that's a procedural will do on it. I think that's a great point, Lila. Thank you. And I think that language can be amended and should be to say that it's any voter who registers after we pull the list. Great. Yep. Doesn't that make sense to you, clerks? Also, yeah. Thanks, Lila. Okay, thank you. Committee, any questions on that? Good catch, Lila. Okay, section nine. Right. Section nine, beginning on page 13, amends title 17, VSA section 2540, instructions to be sent with ballots. This removes the instructions for early or absentee voters from the statute, and instead in subsection A indicates that instructions shall be in a form prescribed by the secretary of state's office. And you will see that the instructions going from page 13 onto page 14 are all being stricken from statute. Amends, concerns, questions. Okay. All right. Since the instructions weren't that clear before, I guess it's a good thing we're taking them out of the statutes. Okay. We are now moving into a new subject area, ballot curing and secure drop boxes. This begins with section 10, which amends 17 VSA section 2543 regarding the return of ballots. There's some clarification in here after marking the ballots and signing the certificate on the envelope, the earlier absentee voter to whom the same are addressed shall return the ballots to the clerk of the town in which the voter is registered. And more clarification on line two of page 15. And then in subsection B, once an early voter absentee ballot has been returned to the clerk in the envelope with the signed certificate, it shall be stored in a secure place and shall not be returned to the voter for any reason, unless the ballot is deemed defective of this subchapter and the voter chooses to cure the defect and cast the ballot pursuant to subsection 2547D. So you see we're getting into the curing language. And under subsection D1, all early voter absentee ballots returned as follows shall be counted. This adds to any secure ballot drop box provided by the town or city in which the voter is registered pursuant to section 2543A. And it must be before the close of business on the day before the election. So on the day before the election, so it can't be dropped in the drop box on the election day. Okay, got it. And this also specifies in subdivision D on the last two lines of the page that the voter may do it by hand delivery to the presiding officer at the voter's polling place before the closing of the polls at 7 p.m. And it's adding the time. Any questions or concerns about Senator Clarkson? Okay, it's Friday. I can be Alison. The, I guess my question is when you say they can't be dropped in the ballot boxes, the day of the election or what did you just say? It strikes me that then we should not have the ballot boxes available because if something's available, people might use them. Good, good point Senator Clarkson. And you'll see when we get down below that there's a requirement that they be sealed on the day before the election so that you cannot deposit a ballot on the day of the election. Yeah, okay, good. And in conjunction with that, the instructions be put on the drop box telling the voter to go to the polling place. Right, yeah. It's not good enough just to seal them. You need to then give them directions on what to do. Okay, great. And you'll see that down below. And this gives me a quick chance, Senator White, I did wanna make one comment about this section if that's all right. Yep, which is that under sub B up there where the most language is added where we say unless the ballot's deemed defective. I just wanted to point out that the existing language there that precedes what we added, makes it clear that it's just important for everyone to know that you can only cure your ballot if it's been deemed defective for one of the statutory reasons. We are not opening up to I want to change my vote because I changed my mind. And that's what that existing language there prohibits that you can't get your ballot back after you've submitted it to the clerk just because you changed your mind about how you vote. So this now says unless it's deemed defective. Yep, okay. So are we moving on to section 11 which is the drop box section? Okay, looks like it. All right, section 11 on page 16 adds section 2543A to title 17, the provision of secure ballot box, excuse me, ballot drop boxes. A board of, and again, please ignore the blue highlights. Those were from us adding in some new edits and changing things around slightly this morning. And I should have taken those up. We were running a little behind schedule. A board of civil authority may vote to install one or more secure outdoor ballot drop boxes for the return of voted ballots. Drop boxes must be located on municipal property. If a town has only one drop box, it shall be located on the property of the municipal clerk's office. Drop boxes must allow for the return of ballots by voters at any time of day and must be available for the return of ballots not later than 45 days before the election. Drop boxes must be installed and maintained in accordance with guidance issued by the secretary of state's office. At a minimum, drop boxes must be affixed to a foundation or other immovable object such that they cannot be removed without being tampered with. Be under 24-hour video surveillance or in the alternative be within sight of the municipal building. Three, be constructed in such a manner that it is impossible to remove the ballots without the ballot box being tampered with. And moving down onto page 17. And four, be able to be closed such that the ballots may not be deposited once the deadline for deposit has passed as Will was just mentioning. Subsection E, ballots may be deposited in the drop boxes until the close of business on the day before the election. At that time, the drop box shall be closed and instructions affixed to the drop box, excuse me, affixed to the drop box instructing the voter to return their voted ballot to the polling place on the day of the election. The secretary of state's office shall provide drop boxes to a town or city upon request following a vote of the board of civil authority. The maximum number of drop boxes that the secretary of state's office shall provide in any town or city shall be as follows. And you can see the number of boxes ranges from one to five depending on population size. However, in subsection six, a town or city may have a number of secure drop boxes equal to the number of representative districts in that town or city with one drop box located in each district if that number is greater than the number allowed based on that town or city's, excuse me, number of registered voters in subdivisions one to five. So I do have a question about that. I have two questions, actually. The return of the ballots, not more than 45 days before the election but they're not being mailed out until 43 days before the election, according to the previous wherever that was where it said there, you start mailing them out 43 days. So this is a little inconsistent there that you can't really mail them in before you get them. And then I have a question here about the representative district and the requirement that it be on municipal property. I'm just thinking of Brattleboro. I don't know that Brattleboro owns any. Well, maybe the fire station in West Brattleboro is municipal property, but what if a town didn't own municipal property in one of its representative districts? Yeah, this is my concern too, Jeanette. I think, you know, not all towns are gonna, it may be that a town, a very small town has a more convenient place to put a drop box, but it isn't owned by municipal. It isn't owned by the town, that spot. Yeah, I have no problem with having it be on municipal property. And if they only have one and they're that small, it says that they have to have it by the town clerk's office, which I think is understandable. But what if they don't have, I'm concerned about multi-representative district towns and if they don't own municipal property in those districts? I think we could certainly write a provision and it would allow for that, Senator White. Okay. That said, in the case there isn't municipal property in a district, an alternative location can be found. Okay. Is there a difference if we said public property as opposed to municipal property? I don't know. Everybody has local post offices and stuff like that, that might be public property. Federal land. You just don't want it at somebody's house. You don't want it to be private property. Oh, just property at Brian's. Audrey, did you have a comment on that? Yeah. I actually had a question sort of in a different direction so I can hold if we're still talking about property. Okay. Senator Collomer. Thank you, Madam Chair. So on line 17 and 18 about where the drop box, it has to be under 24 hour video surveillance or in the alternative, be within sight of the municipal building. I'm just wondering, I'm trying to think of all the case. I mean, if someone were to be planning mischief, it probably wouldn't be during the time where the 24 hour surveillance was taking place. It would be at night. Well, that's 24 hours. Yeah, but it says over in the alternative. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay, got it. So if the 24 hour video surveillance is not possible for somebody within sight, but what good does it do to be inside of the municipal building if it's three o'clock in the morning and there's nobody in the municipal building? Not much. Okay, I just... Yeah. I mean, if I was planning on mischief, it wouldn't be at noon. No. You know what I mean? Or when anybody was around. Yeah. In plain sight, Brian, is sometimes, you know, the most insidious. And the other question I had, I'm assuming that the cost of the boxes is gonna be borne by the Secretary of State's office. Thank you. At Senator Collin where I would just say, I mean, that's, you're totally right, but that part of the reason you at least say it's within sight of the building is maybe it gives that 3 a.m. nightcrawler a little more pause if they, you know, see the police building right there or the clerk's office. And they wonder, is there a camera I can't see? You know, different than it just being out in the middle of the street or in, you know, next to a farm somewhere. Or you could just put one of those ADT signs up on the building. Neighborhood Watch. Gwen, did you have a comment? And then we'll go to a new topic here. Well, this is just, this is an all new language. So this is kind of a lot to absorb. I'm trying to find out the different iterations of how a small town versus big town or multi-district town would deal with these ballot boxes. But I'm assuming like, for example, for the 24-hour surveillance or within sight of a building, I'm pretty sure most towns would fall to the ladder, you know, instead of doing 24-hour surveillance and keeping video footage under, you know, the public records act and all that stuff. They probably wouldn't want to deal with that. So I would think that within sight of a municipal building would what they'd be falling back to. So what that means, I guess is good. I think digesting a lot of this will be a lot of, it'll be a lot for a lot of towns to kind of figure out what's right and what's wrong. And is this language that came from other states that you borrowed from? Just trying to understand where the standards came from or were they your own? Some from other states, some, you know, common sense. But Gwen, I would point out that that's a primary reason to why the whole thing's permissive. Right. And if a town can't figure it out, then they should. They're not required to install one. Right. But my goal will be to work with as many of them to talk about what their conditions are to get one in place that's as secure as possible. Sure. And it doesn't, it actually doesn't say the town fall it says a municipal building. So in Putney, for example, it could be at the fire department, which is much more secure than the town hall because there's always either a fireman or a sheriff there. So. And that I think I had actually had clerk's office initially and on Carol's suggestion sort of broadened that for just that reason. Okay. So Audrey, did you have? Yes, ma'am. Thank you, madam chair. I wanted to sort of ask the secretary of state and the clerks if there was a specific reasoning around and I guess the committee too, if there was a reasoning around why drop boxes are closed the day before election day. In my experience, that is a very rare piece of law there. So I was wondering if there's something procedurally because that's not usually a recommendation that my organization would make. I'll let the town clerks answer that, but I will answer that from the perspective of somebody who lives in the town is that the town clerks and the elections officials are gonna be pretty busy on election day dealing with the election itself. And they don't have time to run around and look at the ballot boxes before seven o'clock the night of the election. That's my take on it, but I'll let Will and Carol and John respond to that. Carol? That's exactly what I would say, Madam Chair. You know, it's one thing if the ballot box, if the drop box is in city hall and that's where you're doing your elections. It's another thing if you've got ballot boxes, drop boxes scattered at the fire station, at the police station, at the public works garage, getting, you'd have to have a pair of election workers go to each of those locations and check the ballot, the, for the ballots. And it just can be problematic as far as having staffing that day. John, did you? Given the limitations on how many ballot boxes we could have, I don't see it as an undue burden to do it on the day off, but every clerk, you know, your mileage may vary. Well, I can tell you, and Putney, I think it would be a problem if they, for example, put it at the fire station and our elections are at the school, then they would have to send somebody at exactly seven o'clock on election night to the fire station and then bring them back to the school. And it's hard enough to get election workers as it is. But anyway, Will? Those are all the reasons I would add, Audrey, just as an example, if you read the return of ballot section carefully, you can't even bring it to the clerk's office on the day of the election. It has to be hand delivered to the clerk's office before close a business on their last day open. And it's the same reason that they don't wanna have to send the people back to the clerk's office on either a routine basis or as Senator White said at 6.59 p.m. You can, the compromise there, Carol, remember, you can mail it so that it arrives by mail at the clerk's office on the day of the election. And they were okay with that because it just meant that they know when they get their mail and they had to send one person over there after the mail came at some point during the day to then bring stuff back, but that you're not playing this game of, oh, has anybody come and put it through the slot at the clerk's office or not? And it just reflects something we've maintained for a long time here in Vermont, which is that you have all the voted ballots right there at 7 p.m. when the polls close and the clerks hit, click on the tabulator tape and run it and have their results really fast. So it's maintaining that status quo. Any other questions, comments, concerns, Senator Clarkson? Well, isn't this why we have 12 members of the BC, isn't this why we have a lot of people on the BCA? I mean, surely if we cut, if we let drop boxes be used until five o'clock on the day of the election, people could go, a team of people could go and pick them up. I mean, it doesn't strike me that this is a huge burden. I would agree with John and Audrey. I will speak up for town clerks in small towns here and say it is a burden and they're gonna have to go at five o'clock and what if somebody comes at one minute after five and drops it off in the drop box? I mean, somebody's gonna have to go then at five o'clock and close the drop box and then put a sign on there that says after five o'clock you have to go to the polling place and drop it off. And if you're getting in your car to bring your ballot to a drop box, it seems to me you can take it to the polling place. You don't have, I think we should leave this because I think it was a problem for town clerks. I know when they were thinking that they were gonna have to go to their offices and collect them at five o'clock and then at six o'clock and then at seven o'clock and check them and then bring them down to the school. So, I mean, you can have deadlines. If somebody appears at the poll at one minute after seven they're not gonna be let in. So you can have deadlines and people have to take some responsibility for knowing the deadlines. So anyway, Senator Polin, I think you had your hand up. Well, I didn't, but I would say that I agree that if somebody's getting in the car to drive to a drop off box they can just easily drive to the town so the voting place seems to me that makes sense. Many times a drop box will be at the municipal building anyway. Might be the same location. I think that's true for the majority. That's a good point Senator Polin. Thank you. Any other comments on that concerns? Paul? Just a question. Is there any requirement or encouraging language that could or should be there that for the person who does go to that drop box when it is not able to receive a ballot at that point? It's, you know, they may say, well, why the heck not? I mean, this is where I'm supposed to drop ballots. What do I do? Most of them will figure out they go to the polling place. No, it says on page 17 lines four, five and six. Great, thank you. Yep. Okay. Can we move on? Okay. All right, repeals. We've repealed something here. Yes, section 12 on the top of page 18. Repeals 17 VSA section 2545, which is the section receipt of marked ballots by town clerk and delivery to election officials. And the reason this is repealed is because these provisions are now covered elsewhere in other sections. Okay. Everybody okay with that? Okay. Moving down to section 13 on page 18. This is the section that we'll begin talking about ballot processing and defective ballot notification. Section 13 amends 17 VSA section 2546. It amends the section header so that it now reads receipt of ballots by clerk, voter status, opportunity to cure and processing absentee ballots. Subsection A is where beginning 30 days before the opening of the polls on election day, upon receipt of a mailing envelope containing ballots returned by the voter, the town clerk shall, as opposed to previously it said may, within three business days or on the next day the office is open for business, whichever is later. Direct to election officials working together to do all of the following. Number one, open the mailing envelope and sort early voter absentee ballots by warden district. And two, determine that their certificate has been signed. The voted ballot was placed in the certificate envelope and the ballot is not defective for any other reason pursuant to section 2547 of this sub chapter. And if you recall, that was a discussion that the committee had earlier about how clerks can determine that a ballot is defective in a way that's curable simply by opening the outer envelope and that this section would allow them to do so. Subdivision A, beginning on the top of page 19, if the ballot is not deemed defective, the clerk shall check the name of the early voter, name of the early voter off the entrance checklist and record the ballot as received and accepted in the online election management system and place the certificate envelopes into a secure container marked checked in early voter absentee ballots to be transported to the polling places on election day or alternatively, open the certificate envelope and place the voted ballot in the ballot box or tabulator in accordance with the procedures contained in section 2546A of this sub chapter. If the ballot is deemed defective, the clerk shall check the name of the early voter off the entrance checklist and record the ballot as received and defective in the online election management system, place the ballot in the defective ballot envelope in accordance with procedures of subdivisions 2547B1 through 3 of this sub chapter. Not later than the next business day, mail a postcard designed and provided by the secretary of state's office to the voter at the address where the ballot was sent informing the voter that their ballot was deemed defective and rejected and the reason it was deemed defective and the voter's opportunity to correct the error pursuant to subsection 2547D or alternatively at the clerk's discretion not later than the next business day, contact the voter by phone or email to inform them of the status of their ballot and their opportunity to correct the error. Beginning five business days preceding the election, the clerk is not required to send a postcard to those voters whose ballots have been deemed defective. In these cases, the clerk shall make a reasonable effort to provide notice to the voter as soon as possible using any other contact information the clerk has on file and shall record the ballot as rejected, excuse me, as that should read defective, not rejected defective. Let me make a note there. In the online election management system not later than 24 hours after the ballot is deemed defective. And subsection C, now at the bottom of page 20. So can we go, can we talk about that section first because this is all about curing? Any comments, concerns, questions about this section and we have not yet gotten to the section where it defines what a defective ballot is, but that will come. But any questions about this section, Paul? For the record, which I neglected to do last time Paul Burns, Executive Director of VPIRC. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanna express strong support for this section, this curing section, I really think it's well crafted and appreciate the content there. I had two questions. The first was if in subsection B where the ballot is, if it is found to be defective then we give in subsection I.V4 we're giving the opportunity to contact voters by postcard or in the alternative with other contact information that you may have available, phone or email. And I guess I was wondering, what does it mean then to contact the voter? And maybe I missed that elsewhere there. Does a phone message, is that a contact to the voter? And I had some concern that if the clerk in this situation is as an alternative to the postcard making a phone call, leaving a message, I can speak for myself. Sometimes those phone messages are not heard, certainly not by the person that you want to hear it. And so I wanted to ask that. Now that's separate from within the five days of election where that's the only chance you have. So that's my first question. Can I maybe get some clarity on that? Yes, Will, do you wanna, do you have? That's a great question, Paul. You think about this stuff too much like me because I anticipated that. And I think we should put some language in there to address what you're talking about. And I'd like to hear the, if the clerks have any opinion about it, but my proposal would be that if you don't, I wouldn't want it to just be a message either. I never pick up my cell phone and I rarely listen to the voice mails, maybe once a week. So I think there should be language in that it says if they do not have some direct contact, if they don't receive a reply, one of the reasons I didn't put it in there is I was having trouble coming up with the actual language when it occurred to me this morning. But I think we can address that. And then to say that if they don't, they have to be able to post that. Carol or John, do you have- This is my thought this morning. Well, Will just said if they don't receive a reply and then he sort of left it hanging and I'm wondering how far down that road clerks are going to be required to go. We mailed a postcard and nobody got back to us and we somehow find their Facebook page and post a message and nobody responds. And at what point in time, are we able to just cross them off the list? And how much additional work are we adding? I completely support the idea of the postcards, but I'm afraid that if we start adding more musts to that list as far as ways to contact the voters, we're turning it into a substantial chore. So the other way to go, which I would support also is just taking out the alternative and say you mailed a postcard to everybody. And then you're done. Then you're stamping that postcard and put it in the mail. And if it's going to as the statute proposed statute says go to the same address as the ballot, you know that you've had a successful mailing to that address. You've gotten the voted ballot back, albeit defective. So you really should be able to expect that that postcard is gonna arrive with that same person at that address. It's up to the committee. I would be willing to go either in those directions. And then if we want the other to come up with some actual limits, Carol, we would have to think together about where it ends. John. Just to put it out there in my particular town, my preference would be to have the option to call because that's simply the way we work. We're sort of that familiar and we tend to call about everything. However, I am uncomfortable with creating a sort of what feels like an arbitrary distinction here. When you mail something out, you don't get that direct confirmation that they got it. Just like a phone message. There's really no difference there. So if that's gonna be a stopper for the phone message, it just doesn't, it's not consistent. So, you know, I think probably for consistency, the card would just, just the card would be better even though boy, I'd much rather make the phone calls. Yeah. Well, any other thoughts about this? It does occur to me that if somebody leaves a message at my house, I may get it or I may not get it or I may get listened to it actually six days too late. But I also, they're right. You don't know that I got the postcard either. Right. Because the postcard could have gotten mixed in with all the publishers clearing house junk that comes and just got tossed into the, so there's no way of knowing in any one of these methods whether I agree. So I would leave it just as it is there. You can leave a message, you can email, you could run into them at the drug store probably, but we won't put that in. But if they've already gone to the effort to send in a ballot, you know, you're curing the ballot, right? We're curing it. My guess is they'll be engaged enough to, and you leave a message that it's about the ballot. My guess is they'll get back to you. And they'll still have the indication if they check their voter status that it was defective and it was not received and they could walk into the clerk's office and do something about it or something. Yeah. I don't care. Yes. My only thought was at the beginning if you only get a message, then you could supplement that with the postcard. In other words, if you don't make the contact with the phone, I do think that that is less reliable than sending the postcard, which after all, as Will said, they at least through the mail already got the ballot. We know that that is a process that works. I don't think you can say that that is as consistently true that somebody checks or receives phone messages. So, if you don't reach them by phone, I don't mind leaving it as an alternative, but if you don't reach them by phone, why not just put a postcard in the mail? But how do you know if you've reached them? Well, you know if you've spoken to somebody. No, but if we leave a message, I might listen to the message and I say, oh, screw it, I don't care. I'm just gonna ignore this message. I don't wanna go in and cure my ballot. Well, but that's what I'm saying. If all you have is an opportunity to leave a message, then you, as the clerk would know, I have to send a postcard. I, sorry, I thought that the minute they identified a cured ballot, the first thing they did was send a postcard. Or this says, or alternatively at the clerk's discretion, they could phone or email. That's, they can do one of three things. Mail a postcard, phone or email, according to this. I think that they should automatically send a postcard because that's easy to do. The secretary of state's gonna supply them. All they do is fill them out and pop it in the mail. I think that's the easiest option. And then if they want to do something else on top of it and they happen to know that person or whatever, then they can follow it up if they haven't heard in a couple of days. But I think it's really the easiest and simplest and then you know you've reached out and it's done to send a postcard. Okay, so committee, we have a couple of options here. We can leave this as it is. We can take out the alternatively. And just for your information, I will, those little I, V, I usually refer them as little I, or little I, I, I, but they are in fact, Tucker has informed us, Romanettes. Yeah, so it's Romanette four. And so we can leave Romanette four. We can eliminate it. And John can still make his phone call if he wants to. Or we could put something in there that says, if you have to leave a message or you don't receive an email back saying they got the email, then you have to send out a postcard. So I think those are the three alternatives that we have. Where are we committee? Any thoughts? Yeah. Okay. I think given those options, I would leave it as it is. I mean, we write election bills every year for Pete's sake. We could always make some small changes and end up to be a problem. I agree. So leave Romanette four in there as an alternative. Yeah, I think so. Here's the clerk. I mean, none of them has seen perfect ways to do it and we're just picking what seems to be the best or easiest way to do it. I'm not saying it's ideal. Senator Palomar? Yeah, I think it gives the clerks the most options. So I'm all in favor of that. Senator Rom. I think it should be send a postcard and then anything else is that at their discretion as opposed to send a postcard or yes. I would agree. I thought that's what three did. Little Romanette three says send a postcard, not later than... Yes, but look at page 20. Line one says alternatively. Yeah, I see that. But that's what that means. I would say, yeah, right. Okay, I got it. I would say, I agree with Keisha. I think that the postcard should be mailed and then if the clerk wants to do something else on top of it, that's great. But I think the postcard is the baseline for communication. At least you know you've done that. Clerks? Oh, Senator Polina. I just wanna ask Keisha to say again what you said before. So I understand what you're saying. So the postcard is a requirement if you discover the ballot. Everything else is optional. If you want to do more, if you wanna depart upward from a postcard. Yeah. I think that's right. To me, the most equitable is the postcard because as Will said, we have a mailing address for everybody. We don't have a phone number. We don't have an email address for everybody. And my concern is that as soon as we start calling the people we know, then we're treating voters differently. Okay. Yeah, just for VFC, postcards it makes sense. It's standardized. Everyone's treated equally. And then anything above and beyond can be done individually. And it's also the easiest method because you're just dropping it in the mail. It actually takes more time to call. But like John Odom said, if you have a personal relationship with people in town, you know their contact information then you can do that on top of it. But it just seems much more straightforward. There's much less room for confusion and accusations of shenanigans. So. Well, we don't like shenanigans. So we will take, we will delete lines one, two, and three on page 20. Okay? Well, aren't we just getting rid of old, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that the clerk can do what they want on top of mailing the postcard. Yes, but we don't have to tell them that they, we don't have to tell them that they can do whatever else they want. They can just do it. Alternatively. So we're getting rid of the alternative. Yeah, I think that's better. So you don't want to say in addition? No, we don't want to say anything. Okay, got it, got it. In addition would mean an added requirement. Yes. They may. You could say in addition they might. No, okay. No, okay. Okay, I got it. I got it, I got it. We're eliminating lines one, two, and three of page 20. Go ahead. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions or concerns? Yes, Paul. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. Then on line seven of page 20, just that next section there. Now we're looking at the five day window before the election. And here we are necessarily talking about something other than postcards as the means of communication. It's the only, this is the last ditch effort to contact those voters. So I understand that. My question here is just now that we, is there a way, and maybe I've missed it, but is there a way to encourage people to submit that additional form of contact information or to encourage that because we've never had this possibility before a reason for them as good as this, like at least I guess I would say for them to submit a phone number or an email address that could be used for this purpose. So that's my question. I think that might require a change in all the forms, the, but John, and then I think Lila, did you have your hand up? It's kind of off the screen. So, okay. It's on the forms as an option. I, if we're talking requirement and I was unclear on that, I wouldn't want another reason to unfairly reject a voter application for registration. Yeah, I think I was just, this, I guess as a voter you always would have said, well, why do you need this other information? And now there's say really clear reason, which is it's the way to contact you if your ballot is found defective, you know, within this window, but yeah, that's it. I would leave that to the education of the continuing education of voters, Lila. Yes, I wanted to go to the initial section that talks about doing, taking all this curing action, beginning 30 days before opening of the polls. I think it is on page. Oh, 18. 18, it's a ballot processing. It's not clear to me again, what would happen with this language if somebody returns, gets the ballot sent 43 days ahead, returns at 40 days before the opening of polls. And so the ballot was received. I believe that when they received the ballot, they then open it up and determine whether it's defective or not. They take it out of the outer envelope. My question is it says, this begins 30 days before the opening of polls upon receipt, they do this. And I'm just saying, it's not clear what they're supposed to do if they received it 40 days before. Lila, I think most of them will set them aside until they hit 30 days when they're allowed to start processing them. This just says that when you get to the 30 days, that's when you start to be on the clock every three days from when you get applications. Yeah, I guess it would, I think that's probably what people would do, but it seems to leave a gap the way it's written to me. It says beginning 30 days after upon receipt. So I think that the issue is that they can't begin to process them more than 30 days ahead. Right. That's also a requirement. It seems to me they should be able to begin processing as soon as they receive absentee ballots within the 30 days. It would be a slight increase in time potentially. And the way structured now, they serve a separate holding pattern for some plots potentially. I don't know how many there would be, but I think sometimes people get about, vote it, then what do you do with it? Why shouldn't you be able to process it then if you're the town clerk anymore, you know? And do you think a simple insertion of no later than would help that? Beginning no later than 30 days before the election with the implication being you'd be allowed to start doing it earlier if you choose. But are we allowing ballots to be processed? Now the minute they're received, is that what we're saying? It's up to you. I think that's a different, a whole nother question that we haven't even thought about. I don't know what are the town clerks think about that? You're not gonna get a whole lot of ballots back earlier than 30 days before the election. I think it's a small number of ballots. As I said, it just could be some. And it would seem good to be clear what could be done with those. And that they probably, the easiest thing, I would thank for the clerks in the system would be to allow them to be processed as well. John? I don't think it would make that much of a difference just because we don't get that many of that early. You wanna draw a line by which it's reasonable that every clerk can be expected affirmatively to do that. And you wanna be careful if one clerk has their tabulator up 30 days in advance, another has 35, 36, are people being treated differently? But if it, you can make it optional. But I don't think it would be in terms of if it were wide open, I don't think it would make that much of a difference. I don't know, Carol, what do you think? Well, the only thing I can think of is that what this language is saying is that you must open them within three days of receipt or the day after, you know, your next business day and determine whether they're defective and data enter them. And so having sort of an open end window might be burdensome to some clerks. So perhaps no later than 30, then at least codifies when clerks must be able to do this. But that having no later than 30 allows for those places where we might have additional staff or whatever, if we wanna get started earlier than that we can. That would address my concern too, basically. Any, but Senator Callumar? Thank you, minute here. I don't know whether I still think this is a good idea or not, but you could just delete the portion of that sentence that says beginning 30 days before the opening of the polls on election day and start the sentence by saying upon receipt of mailing into it. And I think for simplicity's sake, it clears it up. It doesn't have another number attached to it, which now is it 25 days or 30 or what am I doing? But John's point is well taken too. It would open up different standards for different voters depending on, you know, how the mail came in or so maybe forget I said that. Yeah, I don't know. And maybe they're not connected at all, but I thought that we had, it was a tough that we had a kind of a hard time allowing voter town parks to start processing 30 days ahead of time. And now we would be allowing them to start processing the minute they got a ballot. Because if you get my ballot on day 41 because I got it and I mailed it right in, then you see that it's defective. And then I come in and I cure it. Can I feed it into the tabulator then or drop it into the ballot box or does it go back into the envelope and sit there until 30 days before? And if I'm, if you don't get my ballot and I come in 41 days before and say I wanna vote now and put it in the tabulator, am I being treated differently than the guy who defective ballot came in 43 days ahead? I guess maybe I'm wrong here and maybe it doesn't do that but that's the way it affects me is that a person with a defective ballot is being treated differently than a person without a defective ballot because their ballots are processed earlier. Is that right or not? Am I wrong? I think you're right. I think in what you laid out though if you come back in before the 30 days as it's written now the tabulator wouldn't be available to you. If you come in and cure your ballot you'd have to put it in a certificate envelope at that point. I wouldn't be as worried about that Senator White but I was gonna frame it the same way you did which is that I'm just trying to remember what the issue was when we went from one day to 30 days. Yeah. And Carol, I don't know if you have any insight there not to put you on the spot for that but. It mostly has to do with how much work there is to do the day before and that opening that window up and that it's been so successful down in Brattleboro that it just seemed like a good option to be able to open that up to voters. But wasn't there pushback from people who didn't wanna be able to do that? Right. And I think that's where I'm concerned about is that we'll see the same resistance. Here. I think the suggestion Senator Callemore made if you were gonna do anything makes the most sense. Yeah. That you just say you do it on policy but thinking about that I mean not doing that and leaving it as it is gives certain clerks the ability to just say I'm not gonna think about this process and it needs ballots yet until 30 days before the election. Can't I wait to start doing my election work until a month before I get my other work off my desk? I think you're right. Sorry I said. No, it's a good conversation. I actually think that leaving it just as it is is the best option but other committee members. I don't see anything wrong with leaving it. Okay. Senator Rom. Mm-hmm. I think that's always the safer option. Senator Clarkson, you are muted. I know I'm muted. I think it's fine. If people are fine with it as it is I would leave it the way it is. Okay, Senator Callemore I think you put your thumbs up. Oh yeah, that's what I had done too. Oh, okay. I'm sorry I didn't see your thumb. All right, so are there other questions or concerns then about this section? And I assume just for that when it says no later than the next business day that means the business day of the particular town clerk not business day as meaning Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Am I right? Which line are you looking at? I'm looking at page 19, line 16. No, I would read that as the next business day. Of the town clerk. No. So if it comes in, they have to come in and do it whether they have office hours or not. No, because the timeframe you're looking at there on line 19 is to mail the postcard. Right. So they're already there opening the mailing envelope. They're in their office then making the defective determination. Right, they need to. If they're closed the next day one thing to point out which you're right if they were closed the next day this is requiring them to either mail it that day when they're closed or before they leave. Yeah, okay, that's what I just wondered. I just wanted to make it clear that this was not their business day. No. So they, if the mail comes at 430 and they're scheduled to leave at a quarter of five they get five of them, they better hustle. If they don't have hours the next day they could also come into the next business day and do it. Right, okay. The important place we gave them the flexibility was actually opening the mailing envelope itself. Right, yeah, okay, just checking. And real quick, while I had the mic I know we're moving on. I just wanted to say to Paul because I didn't get a chance to respond. Paul, we can certainly, and I think it's a good idea think about the language on the absentee ballot form and just calling out that if you give us your phone and email it's gonna give us more ways to contact you. Carol. Similar language could be added to the online voter registration and MVP pages encouraging people to provide the information for the option to cure ballots. Good, thank you. Okay, so I think we're all the way down to line 15 on page 20. Yes, beginning with subsection C, on line 15 of page 20, this updates the processing absentee ballot language on election day. If the certificate envelopes have not been opened and the voted ballots placed in the ballot box or tabulator, the town clerk or presiding officer shall deliver the unopened ballots to the election officials at the place where the entrance checklist is located. During the polling hours on election day at the discretion of the presiding officer at least two election officials shall open the container marked checked in early absentee ballots. One election official shall open the certificate envelopes turn the certificate side face down and hand the envelope face down to a second election official from a different political party who shall remove the ballots from the envelopes and deposit them in the ballot box or vote tabulator. So I just have a question you said at the discretion but here it says at the direction. Excuse me, thank you. At the direction of the person. Oh, okay, okay. I misspoke. It is direction. And you will see that subdivisions two and three are being repealed here in part because the process is going to be addressed these process parts are addressed in other sections of the bill with the exception of within subdivision three a which I know is a little bit hard to read since it's crossed out. It does say that I'm trying to find the exact line. This has to do with the election officials determining whether proper identification is on the envelope. If you look at line five of page 22 if the proper identification has not been submitted the ballot shall be treated as a provisional ballot as provided in sub chapter six a of this chapter. And so that portion is not addressed elsewhere in the ballot, but there is the addition of the curing language. And then we've kept the last subsection here all early voter absentee ballots shall be commingled with the ballots of voters who have voted in person. Any comments, John? I wonder in other similar sections there's been a caveat to the members of two political parties within, you know if possible or whenever possible because it can be problematic for some of us in those towns where I say that the JP, the BCA fills up with members of one political party or another. And then of course others are not, you know other folks who could be involved in the voting process may not be specifically aligned with one party or another because they aren't a justice of the peace or they aren't for example on a party committee which are the only ways you can really get that RDRP. So I wonder if there might be room for that kind of caveat there because I could see that potentially slowing down a process in a town like Montpellier possibly dramatically. That would be like online five in there on page 21 is that possible to do to put where possible from a different political party? Will, Carol? Sorry, I was looking at Will. I do think that would be possible, so anyway. Okay, all right. It is interesting because we say that in lots of places and yet we don't register as anything unless we run for a partisan office. So it's, I mean, how do you know that Joe Schmo is a Republican or a Democrat or a progressive? So it's a good point. And justices of the peace are the only place where we seem to have like 12 candidates from either party. And yet we don't use party for any other local office. Some local offices do in some towns. Really? Well, look at Burlington City Council. Oh, well, they are as we know an independent and rogue nation. But that's, and I don't know if they do in Montpelier, but I don't know. But they do know they could, if they wanted to, however. Burlington's the only one. Right, but they could in any place else if they wanted to. So, but anyway, we'll just add that. Thank you, John. Okay, so moving on to section 14. Section 14 on page 22, would amend 17 BSA section 2546A, changing the title of this section to deposit of early voter absentee ballots in vote tabulator. Subsection A has some language to conform this section to the changes in process that are outlined elsewhere in the bill. Noting that the Board of Civil Authority may vote to permit election officials to deposit early voter absentee ballots that have been processed in accordance with subsection 2546A of the sub chapter and have not been deemed defective into the vote tabulator or ballot box in accordance with the provisions of this section and any guidance issued by the Secretary of State. Moving into page 23, any such depositing of ballots shall take place at the town clerk's office during the 30 days preceding the election. In subsection B around notice, if a Board of Civil Authority votes to deposit ballots as described in subsection A, the process shall be conducted during normal business hours if practicable or if conducting the process at a time other than normal business hours, notice of the dates, times and location of the processing shall be posted at the clerk's office and two other public places at least three days in advance. And this you'll see removes the previous requirements that the ballots will be deposited, excuse me, that notice be posted that the ballots will be, that the town clerk shall post notice that the ballots will be deposited in at least two public places in the municipality and in or near the town clerk's office, not less than 30, nor more than 40 days before the election. And this again has to adjust to when the processing is taking place given that there will be early processing. Everybody okay with that? Okay. And again, subdivisions two and three are removing some of the process that is accounted for elsewhere in these new revisions. On page 24, you'll see the subsection D has been removed and if you will scroll down onto page 25, a new processing subdivision, excuse me, subsection D has been added. For processing, the secretary of state's office shall issue detailed procedures for conducting the processing of early ballots into the vote tabulator or ballot box pursuant to this section. A town or city shall follow the procedures issued by the secretary of state's office for this purpose. And this removes some of the very detailed instructions on how votes are supposed to be processed that you see stricken above. And everybody okay with that? And that is the end of this section. Okay. All right. So moving on. Oh, moving on, okay. We're almost there. Page 26, section 15, amend 17, BSA 2546B. And this is to add some language about the secure ballot box as there are instances where a town clerk's office may not have a tabulator and may instead use a secure ballot box. You'll see that added in here into subsection A1, also in subsection B1. And then- We use secure in one place and not in the other. Does it need to be secure in each place? Line 14 doesn't have secure. You are correct. It is not on page 27, line five also. Will, do you have a, I don't recall whether secure in that instance was intentional versus will, do we know? I don't either. Does the committee like to emphasize secure? Yes. Sure. I think it makes people happy. I think so. It makes the public happy. I mean, I think we have utter faith in everybody, but- Yep. Okay, making a note. All right. So moving on to page 27, line five, we will change ballot box to secure ballot box. Also, and in subdivision four, the town clerk shall maintain a record of each earlier absentee voter who voted in person in accordance with the section and shall mark these voters as having voted early in the clerk's office in the online election management system. Again, in subsection C, we are adding secure ballot box or a sealed vote tabulator and moving. And actually that is the end of section 15. There's really some cleanup language that we will amend to state secure ballot box. I do, I just, we need to make sure that we're not confusing a secure ballot box with a secure ballot drop box. Yes. Okay. Any six, are we okay with that up to this point? Okay. Moving on to section 16 on page 28. This section amend 17 BSA 2547. This is the defective ballot section that has been referenced numerous times. And this removes the, let's scroll down to page 29. Each defective ballot or unopened certificate shall be and then there's a list of what should happen at the bottom of page 28, affixed with a note from the presiding officer indicating the reason it was determined to be effective and placing, excuse me, and placed with other defective ballots in an envelope to mark defective ballots. Voter checked off list do not count. And then it removes this subdivision three, returned in that envelope to the town clerk in the manner prescribed by section 2590. And then subsection D1 is being added. If a ballot is deemed effective, the voter shall be informed of the defect in accordance with the provisions of subdivision 2546A2B, which we covered earlier. Upon notification, the voter may cure the defect until the closing of the polls on election day. And the options are by either correcting the defect or submitting a new absentee ballot in person at the clerk's office or at the polling place on election day or requesting a new ballot be mailed to them by the clerk along with materials for submission of the second ballot. If a voter corrects the defect in accordance with subdivision 1A, the clerk shall update the status of the ballot to received accepted in the online management system. And it looks like I need to fix a quotation mark there. That is misplaced. If a voter corrects the defect by requesting a new ballot be mailed to them under subdivision 1B, the clerk shall enter a second absentee ballot request, an issue date for that voter in the online election management system. The same voter may cure a ballot deemed defective not more than twice for any single election. And that is the conclusion of this section. So remind me here that they can only be cured for a couple of reasons. And where do we say that? Thanks Senator White. The way, and I wanted to address this the way that I think about it and if you scroll back up to the reasons, Amarin, can you get the one through six there? Yes. I think by their nature, it's clear which can be corrected and cannot. And I don't think that we should get into limiting curing to one or the other. If you go through them with me, the identity of the earlier absentee voter cannot be determined. You don't know, you're not even gonna notify that person. Right. Those are truly out in the ether. The earlier absentee voter is not legally qualified to vote. That's one of two things. They're not on your checklist. Then you're not notifying them either. You don't know who this person is. Or they haven't submitted the documentation required from a first time registrant. And Carol and I have talked about this one a few times. When you open the mailing envelope, you're gonna have the certificate envelope that's signed with the ballot in it. And you can feel that it's got the ballot in it. And there either will or won't be documentation in that envelope. Carol, I think you've said that sometimes you'll find that the documentation is in with the ballot. But I think if you don't see it in the mail or you're gonna notify that person, and then you would get the response from that person, look in the certificate envelope. I put the documentation in with the ballots in that envelope, or they're gonna cure it that way. So I think that one should be curable. I wanna get back to that one in a second. Then if you go through the others, if they've voted in person or previously returned a ballot, you're gonna call that defective because you've got them checked off your checklist already, right, as either returning an absentee ballot or having voted in person at the office. I think that also that's a place to notify. So you send them the postcard that says I've deemed your ballot defective because I have here that you've already voted in this election. And then that voter has to would cure that defective ballot. The only way they could would be by telling you that your records are wrong. Well, I did not send the ballot. I don't know why you had me marked off. And then we get into figuring out what's going on there. Certificate is not signed. It's the easy clear one voted ballot is not in the envelope is clear. And the primary, if they've failed to return the unvoted primary ballots, that can also be cured by giving them a new complete set of three, asking them to vote one and return the two unvoted. So I don't think it's necessary to define which ones can be cured and which ones can't. The whole that that still leaves and it gets back to something we went past before are and help me with this Carol if you think I'm off base, but are the ones that would come back that needed documentation that don't have it, that you find right on election day. So there's way fewer of those circumstances now because you're requiring these clerks to process within three days, right? Throughout the whole voting period. So these are gonna be unearthed as they're processing in the three day period throughout the 30 days. So it leaves you with a really small universe of the ones that are gonna come in on either the day before the election or election day that might not have that documentation. But then that is gonna be a difficult cure in the moment on election day. So I think we probably should revisit and hammer and call it out as we were going through a couple of sections above where there's the language about that situation requiring a provisional ballot. If you have a ballot that's been submitted by one of these folks, but there's no documentation. So I think we may want to reinsert that language somewhere if the committee thinks that's a good idea to continue considering those a provisional ballot. I will tell you that I can't remember one in the last eight years where there's been a ballot in that kind of limbo that was considered provisional. Committee, anybody else? I'm okay with putting in that language, inserting it someplace wherever it goes. Yeah, I agree. Another question, Madam Chair. I'm sorry, Will. I'm sorry, yes. Let me get the document back up. So page 29, if a ballot scheme defected, the voter shall be notified, et cetera, et cetera, and that has a couple of ways to cure it, either going to the clerk's office or the polling place or requesting a new ballot be mailed to them. But how would the clerk be able to mail a ballot out if it was on election day and have it get to the voter in time? It wouldn't. So we probably need to change some words in that section because it clearly says upon notification the voter may cure the defect until the closing of the polls on election day by either going to the polling place of the clerk's office or requesting a new ballot be mailed to them. Right, so at 6.30 on election day, you call and ask to have a new ballot mailed to you. I think it's a technical correction, but I think he's right. No, it's important to think about. Thanks, Senator Calmer. To me, that situation is still limited by the overall requirement to return your ballot by 7 p.m. So the clerk would contact the voter, then they'd say, okay, mail me another. The clerk would say, I'll mail you another, but the ballot deadline is 7 p.m. So you're out of luck. Essentially, people who are notified of their ballot being defective and can't cure it in person in the last couple of days before the election are gonna be out of luck here. I guess my question would be then, why put that clause in there? Well, because it's important throughout the whole period, right, if you're before the election and it's somebody who's in Colorado and they mail it in, but they forget to sign the certificate envelope. They can't come in and sign the certificate envelope. So you need an option to say, can you mail me another set? And I'll do it right this time. But I could think about how to address what you're talking about that. I think the practicality of it addresses it, but it might be good to specify in the statute too, that the second option isn't available at some point. I think he has a point. I think that you could leave that there but then put something with the provision that the ballot still had to be returned by seven o'clock on election night. I mean, and to me, that is kind of what the language right above says, that they only have the opportunity to cure until the closing of the polls. I know, but I just would add that, I think, to make it really clear that, as you said, you can call and say, mail me another ballot, but I'm gonna tell you that unless you have it back to me by seven o'clock tonight, I'm not gonna count. Okay. And the, to ask about another section of item three, so they have two opportunities to cure a defective ballot and then no more. So you mess it up once, we send you another, you mess it up again, we'll still send you another, but that's your last shot. Yeah. That's a whole lot better than what they have now. A whole lot. Yeah, I wouldn't even give them a second chance if they've screwed up the second time. Yeah, I mean, really? Carol? I think that that's reflective of what's allowed at the polls. If somebody messes up a ballot at the polls, they're allowed to get two more ballots, a total of three. So it's a similar process. Oh, really? Okay. Okay, I'm okay with that, but if you screw it up three times. Yeah, really? You go to the end of the line and you get no supper. Okay, are we okay with section 16 with those potential changes? Okay, 17. Take myself off mute. Section 17 begins at the top of page 30 and we're moving on to voting early at the clerk's office. Section 17, amend 17 BSA section 2548, voting in person. This is to specify that prior to the opening of polls voters may come in and vote early in the clerk's office. So you see in subsection A, we've added the words all persons who have voted early in the clerk's office or marked and returned early voter absentee ballots have removed removing subsection B1 and B2 and B3 here, but adding a new one, two and three to say a voter who has been issued an early ballot either by the secretary of state's office or otherwise by the town clerk, but who has not returned their voted ballot to the clerk may vote in person at the polling place on election day. If the voter brings their marked ballot enclosed in the signed certificate envelope, the voter may submit that certificate envelope containing the voted ballot to the entrance checklist official for processing along with any other earlier absentee ballots. The voter shall be marked off the checklist and the clerk shall record that the voter record the voter as having returned their absentee, I have to make a mark there, sorry. The voter shall be marked off the checklist and the clerk shall record the voter as having returned their absentee ballot on election day in the online management system. If the voter brings their marked ballot but it is not enclosed in the certificate envelope, the voter shall be marked off the checklist and be allowed to cast that ballot into the ballot box, secure ballot box or tabulator in the same manner as other voters who are voting in the polling place. The clerk shall record any such voter as having voted in person on election day in the online election management system. If the voter brings their unmarked ballot, the voter shall be marked off the checklist and allowed to proceed to a voting booth to mark that ballot and cast it into the secure ballot box or tabulator in the same manner as other voters who are voting in the polling place. The presenting officer may choose to provide any such voter with a new ballot in exchange for the unvoted ballot that the voter brought to the polls. The clerk shall record any such voter as having voted in person on election day in the online management system. If the voter does not bring their marked or unmarked ballot with them to the polls, the voter shall be required to sign an affidavit that they have not previously cast a ballot in the election and only then shall they be checked off the checklist and allowed to vote in the same manner as all of their voters who are voting at the polling place. The clerk shall record any such voter as having voted in person on election day in the online management system. Any affidavit signed by voters at the polling place pursuant to the section shall be retained for a period of 90 days following the election. And Senator Collomar. Thank you Madam Chair. I know I'm asking a lot of questions. No. I'm trying to participate. So back on sub two, I just have a question and maybe it's just me. Says if the voter brings the marked ballot enclosed in the science certificate envelope, the voter may submit that certificate envelope containing the voted ballot along with any other early or absentee ballots. What does that mean? You skipped the important part. So that's referring to what the clerk does with it. To the clerk for processing along with any other early or absentee ballots. Oh, okay. Thank you. It's treated like you got it in the mail is all. Senator Collomar. And that, but that lets me say that's kind of the distinction. The first one is that case where it's all packaged up and we saw this a lot in November where the voters just show up with it ready to go in the certificate envelope. And there was a lot of confusion and a ton of questions from my clerks about how to treat the return of ballots in various states. And that's what this section is trying to address for them. Carol, I think asked for clarity in this regard. And I hope likes what we've done here, but it's a little more detail than maybe normal, but I think it's pretty important detail that gives pretty important guidance for how you treat these voters when they show up at the polls and how you record them in the system. And that's another important change that I just wanted to point out through all of these revisions that we made. I think really good is that it gives them so much more clear direction about responsibility for recording this stuff in the system. Thanks, Will. Carol. The only question I have, and I don't think it's even a question is I can imagine somebody coming in with their ballot in their certificate envelope, but then saying, I want to put it in the tabulator myself. And ripping the envelope open themselves and then doing it, I would then say that they fall into that category of now they have a ballot outside of the certificate envelope. And they'd be handled as voting in person. So. Yeah. Any other questions or comments on that section? Okay. I think we're on section 18. Section 18 on page 32, amends 17 VSA section 2565, delivery of ballots. And this is just to specify, except as otherwise provided in subsection 2548B, which we just walked through as each voter passes through the entrance. And this would go on to how the officials would be handing a ballot to voters as they come in. I will say that the next section, section 19 again, is also just being amended very slightly to acknowledge the fact that the 2548B that we just walked through is a change to how voting in person may take place at the polls if someone arrives with ballots. Yes, John. I'm just wondering if on line 16 that of doesn't mean to be an or, voter passes through the entrance of the guardrail, entrance or the guardrail. This is taken directly from the statute. Which is weird. Which is weird. So if it is supposed to be an or, then it should be corrected. No, I think it is. But this is what current law is. It's an of. It's describing that place where there's no guardrail, John, the entrance of the guardrail. It's awkward. I mean, it's not pretty, but it, I think it makes sense. Sorry. I will just point out, I'll point out to the committee. This is, we jumped forward into the next sub chapter here. This is where he came out of absentee voting and it's describing voting at the polling place, as you can see. And I just, I would note that it's, it's kind of as specific, right? As those provisions I put in above, which makes me feel better. And I love just for instance, I got to point out to you that the second sentence, line 17, the election official shall also answer any questions a voter may ask, concerning the process of voting. They were legislating all the way down to telling you, you have to answer their questions no matter what. Yeah. Sorry. All right. So I believe we've gone on to section 20. If I'm not mistaken. Okay. And the last page. Yes. Section 20. Section 20 would create a new position within the office of the secretary of the state in the elections division, one new position and any funding necessary to support the position created shall be derived from the secretary of state's service fund. You may need to run some of the language past some people to make sure that we're stating this correctly. But the sentence is adding a new position. Any issues with that section? Will, did I hear you say you wanted us to take this one out? Yeah. I'm opposed to this one, but if you guys insist. Okay. I think it's quite restrained. All right. So, and then the effective date upon passage. So I'm going to suggest two things here. And then we can. So I would, Madam chair. Yes. Might we have a five minute stretch?